


Removed

by basking



Category: 8UPPERS (2010), Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basking/pseuds/basking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arsenal's been taken out, but he doesn't see it that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Removed

Arsenal doesn’t realize he’s been shot until Mac throws an arm around his back to stop him from falling off the back of the ship. He can’t tell where the bullet hit since adrenaline’s washed out the pain, but his hand is reaching for his leg, so it must be there.

With Mac busy holding Arsenal up, Angry and Ugly apparently feel safe enough to leave their cover and approach with weapons drawn.

Ugly tips his chin at them. “Weren’t there five more of you?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Mac tells him. “Sounds like you don’t know where they are. I’d worry.”

Considering his and Arsenal’s extreme disadvantage, now is a bad time to mouth off. Angry has a gun, Mac’s knife is in Ugly’s hand, and both of Arsenal’s holsters are empty. One gun’s in the ocean, and the other’s with Ace.

“Well,” Ugly says, tipping his head to one side. “We saw a pair of you go over the side, so that’s two accounted for.”

Arsenal saw that, too. He also saw Johnny catch the ledge of an open porthole on his way down, and later, Jacky climbing over the railing, soaking wet and shrieking.

Angry’s aiming for Mac’s head, but he’s squinting like he can’t see straight (most likely a result of Gum’s ambush), and from Arsenal’s last count, he only has one bullet left. He’s probably aware that unless takes out Mac, the odds will be much more even.

Arsenal swallows a ragged gasp of pain, which means the adrenaline’s wearing off, and then his leg gives out. Mac just grips him tighter.

Angry eyes Arsenal’s injured leg, changes aim, and fires.

Ace leaps down from the upper deck with a hoarse holler. He puts Angry down with one fist to the back of the head, which leaves him free to make Ugly’s face even uglier.

It’s at that point that Arsenal feels like passing out.

 

Someone’s moving around. Socked feet scuff the wood floor and the rim of a glass clinks against teeth.

Arsenal doesn’t open his eyes. His body is searing, his head is drowned in fire, and he wants whoever’s in his room to get the fuck out.

From the direction of the door, Johnny says, “Ace. Come on. Food.”

“I’m not hungry.” Spoken into the glass, voice low.

“What about you, Arsenal?” Johnny asks.

Arsenal keeps his eyes closed.

A moment, then footsteps fading down the hallway, then silence and stillness.

Until a chair whines and he hears the familiar flick of the safety catching and then cold metal touches his skin.

Arsenal opens his eyes and stares straight up at Ace, who’s pressing Arsenal’s own gun to his forehead. He raises one eyebrow.

Ace says, “I didn’t use any of the bullets, like you asked. Just used it to punch a couple guys in the throat.” He sets the gun down next to Arsenal’s right hand, smirking. “It was fun.”

Arsenal feels his mouth curve. “Good for you,” he murmurs.

He falls asleep with two fingertips on the handle.

 

Because of the double tap in his leg, Arsenal’s exempt from janken for weeks. In that time, he doesn’t bother offering to help anyone.

He helps, but he doesn’t give anyone the opportunity to tell him he can’t.

They go off and do jobs without him, and Arsenal follows along behind, hobbling because the guy they usually go to for medical stuff won’t answer their calls and so they had to use this other idiot who seems to have fucked up Arsenal’s leg even more.

Job after job after job, Arsenal takes out targets from the shadows, feeling frustrated whenever targets evade him and he’s forced to stay in his crouch and let them go because he can’t go after them.

Finally, on a night where the six of them are outnumbered four to one, Arsenal gives up his cover to face off with a wiry guy sneaking around on the roof next to the skylight.

The asshole is aiming at Ace right before Arsenal kicks him behind the knee and sends him crashing down through the glass.

 

His leg’s truly fucked up now. He can’t walk or even stand, so he’s forced to put up with Jacky screaming at him for following them when he’s barely half healed.

“I get it, all right?” Arsenal mutters. “Shut up.”

Mac smacks Jacky’s arm. “Hear him? He gets it. Relax.”

Jacky exhales sharp through his nose. “Idiot.”

Ace loops an arm under Arsenal’s and pulls him to his feet. Arsenal gets a fistful of Ace’s suit jacket and holds in a hiss of pain. Ace doesn’t call him on it, just walks him to the van at a pace that’s fast enough to satisfy Arsenal’s pride and slow enough to keep him from biting his tongue in half.

 

Mac talks out the details of a big job while Arsenal’s sitting on the floor behind the bar and disassembling one of his classic models for a thorough cleaning. Mac’s voice is pitched low, like he’s trying to keep it secret, and Arsenal scowls, because _fuck_ that.

They haven’t tried to barricade him in his room yet, even though Jacky’s promised that that’s been discussed, so on the night of the job, Arsenal tells them he’s going out for cigarettes and goes straight to the site.

Ace is waiting for him, leaning on the building, army knife in hand.

“You really want to die, huh?”

Arsenal eyes the knife and projects a look of deep skepticism.

Ace grins. “I wasn’t going to use it on you, but if you don’t turn back, I might.”

“Hmm.”

They move simultaneously. Arsenal flips out a gun and angles it under Ace’s ribs while Ace loops his arm around Arsenal’s neck to press the blade under his chin.

Arsenal inhales.

Ace’s grin changes.

Arsenal exhales.

“Do it,” Ace murmurs.

Arsenal holsters the gun. “Do what,” he says, flat, and shoulders Ace away.

He doesn’t leave, but he stays well out of range and settles for just picking off the slower, stupider ones.

 

Their medical guy says Arsenal’s stuck with the limp. The muscle’s wrapped up somewhere it shouldn’t be, so even though it doesn’t hurt to walk, he can’t make the right leg move like the left one anymore.

Arsenal takes the news silently, spinning the chamber of his first revolver and staring at his oil-smeared fingers.

After Fuuji-sensei leaves, the seven of them meet up around the bar, but they don’t janken for this one—Arsenal’s out.

They don’t say “liability,” and Arsenal knows none of them are even thinking it. They’re not thinking about themselves.

He doesn’t say anything on his behalf.

No one looks at him.

Then Ace, ever blunt, says, “You’ll get yourself killed.”

Ace stands up and leaves, scowling at the sound of his uneven steps on the floorboards.

 

Arsenal wasn’t asleep, so he flips Ace easily and pins him down by the shoulders. There’s nothing wrong with his _upper_ body.

Ace takes half a second to adapt to his new position, then snakes an arm around Arsenal’s neck and drags him down and traps their mouths together.

Arsenal bites Ace’s tongue.

Ace jerks his head back, but he doesn’t relax his arm. If anything, he holds on tighter. When he licks his lips, he leaves a smear of blood.

Arsenal could break his grip. He’s wirier and angrier and he could take Ace out in a heartbeat because the kid is too wrapped up in himself to bother reading people.

Or maybe he’s wrong.

Ace exhales and removes his arm so he’s lying prone beneath Arsenal, not touching him at all.

Arsenal straightens his arms and presses his hands harder into Ace’s unresisting shoulders. “What do you want?”

Ace smirks, but there’s a softer edge of something else there as well. “You’re not stupid,” he says quietly. “Figure it out.”

Arsenal considers him for half a second, then takes his mouth with a kiss meant to bruise.

 

When Arsenal wakes up, Ace is gone.

There’s a sniper rifle in his place.


End file.
